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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

RV Life: Another Ferry, The South of France and Italy

After a wonderful six days in Corsica, we drove the RV onto another ferry and headed to Nice, France. This time, the queuing and boarding process was orderly and actually made sense, although running two hours behind schedule.

They really cram vehicles in there, don’t they?

We checked in and made it to our cabin, only to find that the bunk bed where Hannah was to sleep was folded into the wall and locked. Shawn stepped into the hallway, flagged down one of the crew and asked if he’d unlock it for us. He said that he would. FOR TEN EUROS. Now listen. Ten euros is equivalent to roughly thirteen American dollars and there was no way I was going to give him even ONE RED AMERICAN CENT to unlock and open a bunk bed in a cabin for which we’d already paid in full a month ago online and via credit card. When the young man held out his hand for the ten euros, Shawn gave me side eyes and it was all I could do to not laugh out loud because it was so obvious that what he was up to was just some old fashioned hoodwinking. Since we weren’t falling for this bit, Shawn went to the reception desk, told them that we reserved a room that slept three (he left out the part about the ten euros because we were still in Corsica and remember, MAFIA) and we were told we could move to another room. Because that would be easier than just unlocking and opening the bunk bed for us, right? So Shawn went to the new room only to find that it was already occupied by another family. And the dad opened the door in his underwear. So that was like, you know, the jackpot.

In the meantime, another crew member came to the original room and when I asked, he unlocked and opened the bunk bed for me. For free. That’s zero Euros or American dollars.

We were finally in business. After all the shenanigans and a good sleep, we woke as the ferry approached the South of France.

We disembarked, drove through Nice and headed up the coast.

We didn’t stop until we came to a costal town in Italy called Savona. We arrived at the campground and found the entrance to be quite small and Shawn was worried that we wouldn’t make it through. At one point, there was less than an inch of clearance on either side of the RV, but we made it in. We set up, changed into our suits and headed to the beach.

It was a pebble beach – not at all what we expected – and in a little cove so there were no waves. But it was packed with Italians of all ages, sneaking in the last bit of summer before school starts. We swam, relaxed, ate pizza and then headed back to the RV.